LIVE NIRVANA SESSIONS HISTORY 1990 - TBC, Olympia, WA, US

  • Bathtub
    • Kurt Cobain (vocals, guitar, drums)
    • Tobi Vail (vocals, guitar, drums)
  • [?] TBC

A recording is known to exist, but is not circulating.

Little is known about this collaboration, though it is presumed to have been taken place sometime during the course of 1990, while NIRVANA were home from touring.

Our band was pretty much just us playing music together, says Tobi Vail. [Kurt] would play the songs he was writing, I would play the songs I was writing and we'd record them on my dad's four-track. Sometimes I'd sing on the songs he was writing and play drums on them. Some of the riffs and lyrical ideas turned into NIRVANA songs later on. I never got him to sing on any of the songs I was writing, but that was OK, they were my throwaway songs! He did play drums on some of my guitar songs and help me figure out which ones were good. He was really into the fact that I was creative and into music. I don't think he'd ever played music with a girl before. He was super-inspiring and fun to play with. (1)

We wrote The Bathtub Is Real on a demo and it got misunderstood as the band's name, Vail explains. Israeli Donkey, as well… I don't know why! This got repeated a lot. I think it was Bathtub, then we realized there already was Steel Pole Bathtub. At the time most people who lived downtown didn't have showers in their apartment, and [The Go Team] had this thing where we'd say, In Olympia we take baths, not showers. as a kind of silly thing. That might be where it came from. (1)

Slim Moon has described their sound as, … like the minimal quiet pop songs that Olympia is known for. Both of them sang; it was really good. (1)

  1. True, Everett, 2006. Nirvana: The True Story. Omnibus Press.

© Alex Roberts. Last modified: September 07 2022